Joy that nobody blows out

Joy is often asso­cia­ted with moments of hap­pi­ness, but true joy goes deeper – it is an atti­tu­de of the heart that can accom­pa­ny us even in dif­fi­cult times. In the Bible, joy is descri­bed as a gift from God that comes into our lives through the Holy Spi­rit. The place of per­fect joy is the new hea­ven and the new earth. The anti­ci­pa­ti­on of this will give our life in this world mea­ning, hap­pi­ness and fulfilment.

The song «No one blows out the Christ­mas cheer» is a real cat­chy tune. Our joy comes from various sources: clo­sen­ess and con­nec­tion with other peo­p­le, achie­ving goals and suc­ces­ses, natu­re and our sur­roun­dings, crea­ti­vi­ty and art, humour and laugh­ter, health and phy­si­cal acti­vi­ty, etc. One of the grea­test joys for me is when I have clim­bed a moun­tain as a cou­ple or in a group on my bike and am now sit­ting com­for­ta­b­ly in a moun­tain restau­rant with a magni­fi­cent pan­ora­ma over an alpi­ne lunch. The pro­blem with all the­se sources is that they can run dry or even pro­du­ce bit­ter water such as con­flict, fail­ure, sad­ness or illness.

The most famous church foun­der of the first cen­tu­ry, St Paul, demands quite bold­ly: «Rejoice, wha­te­ver hap­pens!» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:16 New Tes­ta­ment). Obvious­ly, the­re must be a joy that is inde­pen­dent of moments of hap­pi­ness and the­r­e­fo­re can­not be extin­gu­is­hed.

Joy is a gift

Recent­ly, I rea­li­sed that I had lost some of the joy of my job and had to make sure that I did­n’t just sit out my last few years at work. My wife asked me in asto­nish­ment whe­ther I had a depres­si­ve mood. It’s like this: If the­re is a lack of joy in an acti­vi­ty or in life in gene­ral, it beco­mes tedious. At the Viva Church con­fe­rence at the begin­ning of March on the topic of «Dai­ly Spi­rit», I recei­ved important impul­ses on how I can find true joy again. In this ser­mon, I pro­cess my insights into how joy can return, which I have alre­a­dy experienced.

The key lies in the Greek word for «joy», which is cha­ra means. This term is deri­ved from cha­ris (grace, gift). Joy in the Bible is the­r­e­fo­re the result of God’s grace. This kind of joy is not mere­ly a reac­tion to exter­nal cir­cum­s­tances, but a joy that ari­ses from a rela­ti­onship with God and recei­ving his grace. It is clo­se­ly lin­ked to the expe­ri­ence of God’s love and his goodness.

King David must have known this con­nec­tion 3000 years ago. He says: «You will show me the way to life and give me the joy of your pre­sence. Eter­nal hap­pi­ness comes to me from your hand» (Psalm 16:11 NLB). The joy lies in the pre­sence of God hims­elf and not in the fact that God gives favoura­ble cir­cum­s­tances. Assaf, ano­ther psal­mist, expres­ses the same point some­what dif­fer­ent­ly: «But this is my joy, that I clea­ve unto God, and put my trust in the LORD God, that I may decla­re all thy works» (Psalm 73:28 LUT). The joy lies in an open-ended focus on God. It is a joy to look to God and expect ever­y­thing from Him. Per­haps this will result in many sun­ny days fil­led with strength, wealth and health. But per­haps dif­fi­cult days with thre­ats, ill­nesses and con­flicts will also fol­low. Joy enters whe­re a per­son does not aim for good for­tu­ne and the expe­ri­ence of pro­spe­ri­ty and health, but for com­mu­ni­on with God.

Some peo­p­le think that they have a bad hand when it comes to joy, as they tend to have a hea­vy dis­po­si­ti­on and are always caught up in depres­si­ve moods. They say: «If I had as opti­mi­stic and cheerful a view of the world as my col­le­ague, things would be dif­fe­rent!» Based on the bibli­cal fin­dings, howe­ver, I am cer­tain that the joy I am tal­king about today is inde­pen­dent of our per­so­na­li­ty.

Rejoicing is a decision

We are not sim­ply at the mer­cy of joy, in the sen­se that one time it is the­re and ano­ther time it is not. It is often asso­cia­ted with moments of hap­pi­ness, but true joy goes deeper – it is an atti­tu­de of the heart that can accom­pa­ny us even in dif­fi­cult times. So joy is not sim­ply a eupho­ric fee­ling or the result of our fate or our per­so­na­li­ty, other­wi­se Paul could not cla­im it: «Rejoice in the Lord. I empha­sise it once again: Rejoice!» (Phil­ip­pians 4:4 NLB). This impe­ra­ti­ve makes it clear that we share respon­si­bi­li­ty for ensu­ring that our lives radia­te joy.

What Paul wri­tes just a few sen­ten­ces later is impres­si­ve. He allows hims­elf to look deep into his soul: «[…] I have lear­nt to be con­tent with what I have. Whe­ther I have a litt­le or a lot, I have lear­nt to cope with every situa­ti­on: I can have a full sto­mach or an emp­ty sto­mach, expe­ri­ence abun­dance or suf­fer lack. Becau­se ever­y­thing is pos­si­ble for me through the one who fills me with strength» (Phil­ip­pians 4:11–13 NLB). Obvious­ly, we are tal­king here about a joy that is an atti­tu­de of the heart.

How can a per­son ful­fil the invi­ta­ti­on to rejoice, espe­ci­al­ly in dif­fi­cult moments? By dra­wing grace from God’s abun­dance every day. The way to do this is through the ful­film­ent of the Spi­rit of God who lives in a fol­lower of Jesus. For it says: «If, on the other hand, the Holy Spi­rit rules our lives, he will cau­se com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent fruit to grow in us: Love, Joypeace, pati­ence, kind­ness, good­ness, faithful­ness, gent­le­ness and self-con­trol» (Gala­ti­ans 5:22f NLB). Joy grows in our lives when the spi­rit of God is given much room and domi­na­tes our lives. Whe­re the Spi­rit of God is in char­ge, the king­dom of God spreads: «For in the king­dom of God, it is not what you eat or drink that counts, but that you live a life of righ­teous­ness and peace and in the Joy in the Holy Spi­rit» (Romans 14:17 NLB). The cha­rac­te­ristics of God’s king­dom go deeper than satis­fy­ing our phy­si­cal needs.

Our respon­si­bi­li­ty lies in dra­wing grace upon grace from God’s abun­dance (cf. John 1:16). In con­cre­te terms, this means that we give the Spi­rit of God a lot of space in our lives so that He can domi­na­te it. We do this by prio­ri­ti­sing com­mu­ni­on with the hea­ven­ly Father in our ever­y­day lives.

Jesus has a gre­at con­cern for his fol­lo­wers to expe­ri­ence much joy: «I tell you this so that my joy may fill you. Yes, your joy shall be com­ple­te!» (John 15:11 NLB). It is sym­pto­ma­tic that in John 15 Jesus talks about the Remai­ning in Him and Er-in-Uns speaks.

Joy is fuelled by the future

The new hea­ven and the new earth are pre­sen­ted to us in the Bible as the place of uni­que joy and bliss. In some places, the wed­ding, the occa­si­on that is gene­ral­ly regard­ed as the grea­test day of joy, is used as a strong image for this. This is alre­a­dy expres­sed in pro­phe­tic texts of the Old Tes­ta­ment: «Yes, tho­se who have been rede­e­med by the LORD will return to Jeru­sa­lem rejoi­cing and her face will radia­te eter­nal joy. Hap­pi­ness and joy will come to them. Sor­row and sig­hing will depart» (Isai­ah 51:11 NLB).

In my last ser­mon (30 March 2025), I shared how the employee team gifted me with Cana­di­an pro­ducts a few months befo­re my time­out. This gave me a tas­te of the spe­cial time and a gro­wing sen­se of anti­ci­pa­ti­on. The Spi­rit of God has pre­cis­e­ly this task in our life in this world; to give us a fore­tas­te and to pro­mo­te anti­ci­pa­ti­on. And again we are with the Spi­rit of God, to who­se fruit the ingre­di­ent Joy belongs.

In 2024, Lukas Z., father of three sons, died of a brain tumour at the age of 44. Alre­a­dy mark­ed by his ill­ness, but still just able to cope, he tra­vel­led to the Mal­di­ves with his wife for one last holi­day. The­re he film­ed his own fare­well speech, which was only to be published after his death and the fun­e­ral ser­vice. When I heard it, I was deep­ly impres­sed by the idea on the one hand, but abo­ve all by the gra­ti­tu­de and huge anti­ci­pa­ti­on of glo­ry with God that he expres­ses in the speech. We will now watch a sum­ma­ry of this video.

Divi­ne joy, brought about by the Holy Spi­rit, even over­co­mes our fear of death and can unfold its full power in the face of approa­ching death. What a powerful tes­tim­o­ny to the living God when a per­son can approach their final hour with such joy. Just this week I was able to expe­ri­ence this mys­elf at the death­bed of a mem­ber of our church.

Meta­pho­ri­cal­ly spea­king, fol­lo­wers of Jesus are wai­ting for the time when the bri­de­g­room Jesus reve­als hims­elf and the wed­ding can take place. We like to asso­cia­te wai­ting with tedi­um, a long wait and tedious­ness. Wai­ting for Jesus, on the other hand, has the poten­ti­al for a time of exu­berant (pre)joy. Fol­lo­wers of Jesus who die befo­re Jesus reve­als his new crea­ti­on will go to para­di­se (Luke 23:43). Para­di­se is a place of bliss and joy. At some point, the day will come when Jesus reve­als hims­elf as the bri­de­g­room and the wed­ding will take place. Then the fol­lo­wers of Jesus will recei­ve a new body and live face to face with Jesus in the New Jeru­sa­lem. It is the place whe­re the new hea­ven and the new earth intert­wi­ne as in a temp­le. The divi­ne rea­li­ty will reve­al its­elf and mer­ge with the earth­ly rea­li­ty. It will be a cele­bra­ti­on par excellence.

A wed­ding is a hap­py day – quite a few peo­p­le descri­be it as the best day of their lives. Last year we cele­bra­ted a wed­ding in our fami­ly. The anti­ci­pa­ti­on and joy on the day its­elf were huge. Refer­ring to the new crea­ti­on, the Bible says: «Let us shout for joy and give him the honour, for now the mar­ria­ge of the Lamb is being cele­bra­ted! His bri­de has made hers­elf rea­dy for the feast; she was allo­wed to clo­the hers­elf in pure, radi­ant white linen» (Reve­la­ti­on 19:7f New Tes­ta­ment). Peo­p­le who have been denied a wed­ding in this world may also take part in this wed­ding. The cri­ter­ion for par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on is the wea­ring of a wed­ding gar­ment (Matthew 22:11ff). This is given to a per­son on the day he «cle­ars the decks» with Jesus and puts Him at the top of his list of prio­ri­ties. You can get one of the­se dres­ses today!

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Luke 15:3–10

1. What is the reason for joy in the Bible text above?
2. How do you see the con­nec­tion bet­ween fate and joy?
3. What does it mean that the word cha­ra (joy) has the same root as cha­ris (gift of grace)?
4. How can we ful­fil Paul’s call to «Rejoice»? What is our respon­si­bi­li­ty in expe­ri­en­cing joy?
5. Why can a per­son rejoice on the final jour­ney? Are you also loo­king for­ward to glo­ry with God? What is pre­ven­ting you from doing so?